We were on our way to Manhattan last night for a family dinner when *pop* ... my
dash lights went out again. This double-plus ungood indeed seems to be an exact
recurrence of the first time this happened, and sure enough, the tail lights
were out too. We had to cancel our plans and head home... flashers or no, it
strikes one as quite unsafe driving with no taillights. The BlueTruck has been
an absolute rock in terms of reliability for the just under 50,000 miles we've
owned her (actually, as irony, and financing would have it, we've actually only
owned it outright for a small recent portion of that time), but our faith is
starting to waver here... we previously had a car that suffered from an
electrical glitch that wasn't cleared up after a half-dozen shop trips, and this
(registration required)
Tech Bit from last night indicates we are not completely off-base in our
fears about chronic problems.

As if the fates were intervening, they were just putting a recent-model used
Honda Accord in the front of the lot, which just sat there as if it were saying:
'look how reliable I am!' We may just have a trade-in in our future.